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No, I am not missing this per se. If I thought that there was particular reason to assume it was intended to be naturalist ( though given it seems to have no clear message/theme, that might not have been a bad assumption , at least before it was claimed it had a theme) and also a good bit of writing, I might be willing to consider this. However, I see no redeeming aspect of this work whatsoever. Note that I did not presume for certain that it was meant to be a peice of art (had a theme or whatever), I just sort of assumed that it probably was meant to and that the OP probably did not wish to post naturalist stuff here.

What I am really trying to find out is why this is here at all / why it was posted or why we should care, even if that was intended as a naturalist peice.

I'll concede the passage did look unresolved, and I'd made the assumption it was a first chapter. To state it's a great plot, was premature - but it would invite me to keep reading futher.

Why it's here? Just conjecture, but Objectivists display a myriad of skills on this forum, and opening your private work to your peers for appreciation and criticism is great, I think.

The premise might be - who else could understand me? Who else would I want respect from?

Only one more thing, the OP could be more explanatory, and less defensively inclined.

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This is indeed a rather good point, even if this is perhaps not the thing that the OP is guilty of (though I would be inclinede to agree that it would seem to be). As far as I can tell, a lot of prospective writers are guilty of this error and it hinders them from fully realizing what the READER will get from it, as opposed to how the writer sees it. Two clearly different things, as obviously the writers knows many things which the reader has to infer from the writers delivery.

Indeed. I may not like Eddings' stories anymore but he makes damn good points about that in his section on writing advice in The Rivan Codex (along with a lot of other good advice).

Like I said: You dont get it. Oh well. This piece happens to be getting great reviews on twitter and the adult fan fic site (four and half stars out of five with 700 votes). I have no desire to to discuss it further with those who are known for being intentionally obtuse. Thanks for replying though.

We don't get it because you have not made things anywhere near as clear as you think it is. You seemed to fallen into what I call the Writer's View Fallacy, which is when the writer sees things as obvious only due to the knowledge he has of his intent due to being the writer and thinks it should be obvious to the reader when in fact it is not. As I said you need to look through the eyes of readers too not just the view of the writer. What is obvious to the writer is not necessarily obvious to the reader.

As for it popularity on Twitter and the adult fan fic site, so what? Numbers do not equal accuracy, which you seem not to understand even though Rand said so many times. And if you think we are deliberately obtuse why have you ever bothered to talk to us in the forum or chat? Seems pointless.

[Edit was to include the last sentence as I accidentally posted without typing it.]

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I'll concede the passage did look unresolved, and I'd made the assumption it was a first chapter. To state it's a great plot, was premature - but it would invite me to keep reading futher.

Why it's here? Just conjecture, but Objectivists display a myriad of skills on this forum, and opening your private work to your peers for appreciation and criticism is great, I think.

The premise might be - who else could understand me? Who else would I want respect from?

Only one more thing, the OP could be more explanatory, and less defensively inclined.

With anyone else i would be, (such as you for example) but with these two, based on personal dealings with both in the chat, I'd rather have nothing to do with them as i have no respect for either opinion. Im looking for a way now to block their posts, and then ill be happy to talk about the story with others!

I'll concede the passage did look unresolved, and I'd made the assumption it was a first chapter. To state it's a great plot, was premature - but it would invite me to keep reading futher.

Why it's here? Just conjecture, but Objectivists display a myriad of skills on this forum, and opening your private work to your peers for appreciation and criticism is great, I think.

The premise might be - who else could understand me? Who else would I want respect from?

Only one more thing, the OP could be more explanatory, and less defensively inclined.

Yeah well, obviously it is not my sort of thing ( at least as presented SO far) , as I have made painfully clear , so I will "agree to disagree" there.

I suppose I had not considered that particular "premise" or reason for posting it here. I suppose it could be a test to try guage our ability to predict (based on very little?) what he might have in mind, but I wonder if there is any good reason fore this or the things which you speculated he might be aiming for.

He certainly could be more clear and less defensive about it , yes. He could have ended this thread a while back if he had just been more clear and explanatory.

And no James, there is no mechanism for blocking posts here (that I know of ) and given that this is a public forum and everyone to my knowledge is posting in accordance with the forum rules, there Hell will become a ice skating rink before you are allowed to close off the thread to certain users which you simply disagree with. Even IF you happen not to like what we have to say. Especially if we are not necceasirly addressing you with all of our posts.

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Found a feature that makes it so that their posts do not show on my screen. With being ignored here, and him being banned from chat, this will be the last I hear of Davies and his lackey. Thank God!

"I'll concede the passage did look unresolved, and I'd made the assumption it was a first chapter."

Thanks for the benefit of doubt . You are right, this short story actually comes from the middle of the whole story. That is one reason there aren't full character descriptions. The theme of this particular piece is the irrational view of life (namely that it is meaningless because it doesn't last forever.) I wanted to explore some of the basis for that line of thought, and two different reactions to it. Blue is saddened by it, being the more melancholy of the two, while Cassius feels exhilarated by what shes sees as liberation from meaning and therefore principles, rules and expectations. This is another reason the imagery is 'negative:' one wouldn't want or expect an uplifting presentation of what is a fundamentally wrong premise.

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That is a part of the reason we are having trouble with it. One cannot objectively pick up a story, any story, from the middle without a lot more to go on that what you included. We cannot read into what is not there because you decided to start from the middle not the start. Try starting from the start and it will be a lot easier to understand your points.

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Well, if your purpose with the passage was as 'teaser', you got that right!

As reader I'd expect to see your characters develop and explain themselves, and if it were me, become more comprehensible. I'm not insisting on heroes, understand, only thinking persons who fight their circumstances, in their own darkly brooding way.

But I'm being too prescriptive. You know what you are doing and have your own voice.

I agree with Dragon that numbers or popularity is no criterion.

Some writers have lost their individuality because of that.

Putting oneself in the readers' minds, I have mixed feelings about. That's one way of becoming stifled, creatively. Usually, if you can write, and you care about your subject, the reader will understand and care, too.

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Putting oneself in the readers' minds, I have mixed feelings about. That's one way of becoming stifled, creatively. Usually, if you can write, and you care about your subject, the reader will understand and care, too.

Actually, I would probably at least partially disagree with this view. I dont see how it stifles creatively at all, at least it has never seemed to do so in my case. It is imporant to analyze your work from the POV of someone that DOES NOT know all the extra stuff that you do, which you might not actually say/imply in your work. In other words, you need to look ONLY at what your words actually say, and to forget for a moment what else you might know which might help with what you mean, but which the reader has no knowledge of. Thats all me and Kane are talkign about , I dont really see how this could stifle one at all or be a bad thing.

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Well, if your purpose with the passage was as 'teaser', you got that right!

As reader I'd expect to see your characters develop and explain themselves, and if it were me, become more comprehensible. I'm not insisting on heroes, understand, only thinking persons who fight their circumstances, in their own darkly brooding way.

But I'm being too prescriptive. You know what you are doing and have your own voice.

I agree with Dragon that numbers or popularity is no criterion.

Some writers have lost their individuality because of that.

Putting oneself in the readers' minds, I have mixed feelings about. That's one way of becoming stifled, creatively. Usually, if you can write, and you care about your subject, the reader will understand and care, too.

Yeah, there is a main storyline with a plot, instead of the one off layout of that piece. I wouldnt call either of them heroic, but you do get to see more layers of their personality. The part I am working on right now is Cassius's breakdown, where she shows that she actually loves Blue by opening up to him emotionally. Its fun to explore.

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Putting oneself in the readers' minds, I have mixed feelings about. That's one way of becoming stifled, creatively. Usually, if you can write, and you care about your subject, the reader will understand and care, too.

This is not true. "Putting oneself in the mind of the reader" is not even what I said. I said looking at the writing from the perspective of a readern without the foresight of being the writer. The point of it is purely to see if it could be understood by such a person. This is simply a technique to help you edit your story to make it better. Rather than stiffle creativity it boosts creativity as improved editing means improved creativity. Writing and caring do not guarantee success in regards to readers understanding and caring. Looking at your work from the perspective of a reader with no foreknowledge does help in that regard though.

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I think you people severely over analyzing something which is, in fact, a piece of amateurishly written furry porn.

This is just the work of some dude, trying to pass off his weird fetish for anthropomorphic rabbits fucking in a graveyard as some magnificent piece of art.

Dude, you wrote a piece of porn, a piece of weird furry rabbit porn where people have sex in a graveyard.

Beyond the fact that you occasionally spout off that the characters(if you could even call your weird rabbit people that) spout off that they think life is meaningless, I really don't see any deep philosophical meaning in the work, and why should there be.

I watch porn all the time, but I don't feel the need for the actors to start spouting off philosophical observations while they have sex, and I don't feel the need to justify what I'm watching by saying its some great piece of art or social commentary.

You like to get off by writing weird stories where rabbit people have sex, ok, accept that and realize that other people are going to think that's odd, and unless they share your niche fetish, they are not going to be interested in your sex stories, and they are not going to be kind to the story if you try and pass off your fetish as art.

I think you people severely over analyzing something which is, in fact, a piece of amateurishly written furry porn.

Well, it certainly seems to come across that way, I will give you that.

You like to get off by writing weird stories where rabbit people have sex, ok, accept that and realize that other people are going to that that's odd, and unless they share your niche fetish, they are not going to be interested in your sex stories, and they are not going to be kind of the story if you try and pass off your fetish as art.

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You like to get off by writing weird stories where rabbit people have sex, ok, accept that and realize that other people are going to think that's odd, and unless they share your niche fetish, they are not going to be interested in your sex stories, and they are not going to be kind to the story if you try and pass off your fetish as art.

There's a lot of psychologizing going on here. The very reason I read this is because it is odd and I like thinking about the possible mindsets of people living in a destitute environment (that's why I love dystopia stories). Getting absorbed in sex (Cassius) is one thing to do, making up for the lack of pleasure in everything else. Or another possibility is complete apathy (Blue). What happens when you put them together? This. That they're both rabbits I find to be interesting, and I wonder if later pieces reveal how it is relevant that they're rabbits.

I don't see how you necessarily say this is a story trying to be "passed off" as art. Yes, there are criticisms to be made. For instance, I think it flows a bit abruptly into the sex. I'd rather see a bit more of Cassius' psychology leading up to the sex. If you don't see any philosophical meaning whatsoever in the slightest, and that's fine, but I do see it in there. Maybe with practice at writing, those sort of ideas can be conveyed better. If you think it's too smutty, explain your reasons. Is it too explicit, and if so, why? Does it provide nothing to the story? What differentiates porn from a sex scene in general, anyway?

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There's a lot of psychologizing going on here. The very reason I read this is because it is odd and I like thinking about the possible mindsets of people living in a destitute environment (that's why I love dystopia stories). Getting absorbed in sex (Cassius) is one thing to do, making up for the lack of pleasure in everything else. Or another possibility is complete apathy (Blue). What happens when you put them together? This. That they're both rabbits I find to be interesting, and I wonder if later pieces reveal how it is relevant that they're rabbits.

I don't see how you necessarily say this is a story trying to be "passed off" as art. Yes, there are criticisms to be made. For instance, I think it flows a bit abruptly into the sex. I'd rather see a bit more of Cassius' psychology leading up to the sex. If you don't see any philosophical meaning whatsoever in the slightest, and that's fine, but I do see it in there. Maybe with practice at writing, those sort of ideas can be conveyed better. If you think it's too smutty, explain your reasons. Is it too explicit, and if so, why? Does it provide nothing to the story? What differentiates porn from a sex scene in general, anyway?

Ah, a reasonable view.

It's too easy to get stuck on genre, but I'd classify the piece as Gothic erotica. Which can either be written badly or well, like everything.

In my view (' psychologizing' removed), this passage is written very well.

An author I found quite enjoyable was Erica Jong - an excellent writer in a fairly Classic Romanticist style - who incorporated all the theme, characterization and plot of good novels, with steamy erotica. For example.

Porn?

C'mon - "porn" in literature, is what happens between our ears.

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There's a lot of psychologizing going on here. The very reason I read this is because it is odd and I like thinking about the possible mindsets of people living in a destitute environment (that's why I love dystopia stories). Getting absorbed in sex (Cassius) is one thing to do, making up for the lack of pleasure in everything else. Or another possibility is complete apathy (Blue). What happens when you put them together? This. That they're both rabbits I find to be interesting, and I wonder if later pieces reveal how it is relevant that they're rabbits.

I don't see how you necessarily say this is a story trying to be "passed off" as art. Yes, there are criticisms to be made. For instance, I think it flows a bit abruptly into the sex. I'd rather see a bit more of Cassius' psychology leading up to the sex. If you don't see any philosophical meaning whatsoever in the slightest, and that's fine, but I do see it in there. Maybe with practice at writing, those sort of ideas can be conveyed better. If you think it's too smutty, explain your reasons. Is it too explicit, and if so, why? Does it provide nothing to the story? What differentiates porn from a sex scene in general, anyway?

Is there? I do not see very much of that, certainly not on the part of myself or Kane. But you are the sort of person that would probably think that anyway ( or maybe not this time ).

I dont see how any of this stuff you mention is really very interesting, especially when the manner in which it is portrayed is just disturbing.

I am not sure whom you think are thinking it MUST be trying to be passed off as art. Some of us may have been assuming ( at least initially) that this is what was meant, but that is clearly not the same, especially as it was made painfully clear that it was an assumption ( perhaps an unjustified or hasty one, but that is another matter altogether).

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Indeed, it IS NOT PSYCHOLOGIZING. Except for in this literal sense : "Theorize or speculate concerning the psychology of something or someone". It is fairly clear ( I think) that I was speculating based on what I thought was the evidence at the time, but that does not necceasirly make it the bad sort of psychologizing.